Learn English with this English lesson about Home Repair

Date: Oct 19 2012

Themes: Family, Hobbies

Grammar: Passive Voice

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Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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For many people, the American Dream involves owning their own house. But while home ownership comes with plenty of perks, it also has a big downside. If anything breaks or goes wrong with the house, it’s up to you, not a landlord, to fix it.

Some people are very handy and enjoy making their own home repairs. But for others, a leaky faucet or broken stair means one thing. It’s time to call a handyman. Hear Marni and Amy talk about what they do when something has to be fixed in their homes.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Amy

Marni: There is a wonderful thing about being a renter, and that is that you are never responsible for any sort of home repair.

Amy: That is the truth. I think the worst thing about being your own handyman is that even when you can do a job, you just don’t because you don’t want to do the work, and then…Like, there are a couple things in my house that I just stare at, and think about how this should be fixed, but it’s on me or my husband, and neither of us will do it.

Marni: Right, right. Well, is your husband a very handy person, or is he…?

Amy: He’s fairly handy. There’s certain things that he won’t do, like plumbing or electricity or whatever. But he’s fairly handy, and he does like to have the handyman’s tools and everything.

Marni: Right, right.

Amy: What about you? Do you spend a lot of time at the hardware store?

Marni: I don’t. I am not a handy person at all, and I don’t really have confidence in my skills. I feel like, this thing would fall apart, so that’s why I would rather have somebody else who I know knows what they’re doing take care of it.

Amy: So then if it goes wrong, you have someone else to blame.

Marni: Exactly.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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Marni thinks that the best part of renting a house rather than owning it is that you don’t have to do your own home repairs. If something breaks in a house you are renting, you can just ask your landlord to fix it for you. Marni is not handy and does not like to try to do her own home repairs.

Amy is not very handy either. Her husband is fairly handy, but he does not always make repairs quickly. Amy and her husband have some things in their house that need to be fixed, but neither of them wants to do the work to repair them.

Amy and Marni agree that it’s best to get a handyman to do your repairs for you. That way, if something goes wrong, you can blame someone other than yourself.

Do you like making your own home repairs? Are you a very handy person? What do you do when something breaks in your house?

Comments

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amber rain

China

I like renting the house…

julito

Argentina

I am a plumber and a gas pipe fitter, so i can also fix most of the things that went wrong in my home in Argentina, this is priceless .I just came back from the US, i was living in my cousin´s house and the water heater broke down , the kitchen faucet started leaking badly , I said to my cousing, no problem, I am here ,it won´t cost you nothing , i can fix them for a few bucks . Should she had to call a handy man ,she would have to pay about 200 hundred dollars – parts and labor – .The cost of living ,rent, utilities ,food ,petrol are so expensive in USA that if anything needs to be urgently fix ,unless you are making a lot of money your budget will suffer.